Pursuant to the recent four to one Judgment by a Chamber of the International Court of Justice in the Case Concerning Delimitation of the Maritime Boundary in the Gulf of Maine Area, Canada and the United States are to share Georges Bank. Canada has jurisdiction over approximately one-sixth of the Bank, including the resource-rich “Northeast Peak” and most of the “Northern Edge,” and the United States the remaining area. Since Georges Bank is one of the world’s most productive fishing grounds, and this was consequently a case about fish more than a traditional continental shelf delimitation, the Judgment means that these North American neighbors may have to work out cooperative arrangements for the conservation and management of the shared living resources of Georges Bank. The question naturally arises as to how this outcome was reached, and why it purports to fulfill the fundamental norm of the law of delimitation of maritime boundaries—namely, to achieve an “equitable result.”

On October 12, 1984, a five-member Chamber of the International Court of Justice rendered its decision in the maritime boundary dispute between the United States and Canada in the Gulf of Maine area. The Chamber delimited the continental shelves and 200-nautical-mile fisheries zones by setting one line between the two countries off the East Coast of North America. The Chamber’s Judgment, which under Article 27 of the Statute of the Court is considered as if it were rendered by the full 15-member Court, is likely to attract considerable comment. We will resist the temptation to add our views to that substantive commentary, leaving analysis for the time being to others not so closely associated with the case.

For more than 20 years the Italian Constitutional Court and the Court of Justice of the European Communities have disputed the proper relation between Community and national law. In S.p.A. Granital v. Amministrazione finanziaria, the Constitutional Court recently adopted a position consistent with the Community Court’s view of the supremacy of Community law. Italian constitutional law doctrines on international law profoundly affected this development and may in turn be altered as the implications of the Constitutional Court’s view of Community law are worked out.

The scope of international law steadily widens. In addition to the traditional concerns of direct relations between states such as warfare and diplomatic immunity, it now includes human rights, labor law and environmental policy, which deal with the relations of a state with its own citizens and territory.